Legislative Program

Floor Speech

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information.

I want to also thank him for the work that he has done on the Visa Waiver Program. His staff and my staff and the staff on Homeland Security on both sides of the aisle and the staff on the Judiciary Committee on both sides of the aisle, including the leaders on both sides, have worked very hard.

I think we have come up with a bipartisan effort to keep America safer while at the same time providing for access to people who do not pose a threat to America or to Americans.

I thank him for his leadership on that. I am pleased to have had the opportunity to work with him, and I look forward to the bill's passing with big majorities next week. So I thank him for that.

Mr. Leader, there is indication that the appropriation bills, or the omnibus, as we are now calling it, will come to the floor. Can the leader tell me whether or not we are making any progress on riders?

Obviously, as I understand it, essentially, we have agreement on the allocation of the dollars, which of course is the responsibility of the Appropriations Committee, and that is what they do.

Clearly, we seem to be having difficulty with the so-called riders--that is, additions to the appropriations bill--which accomplish legislative objectives either through a ``none of the funds'' provision or a legislative provision which would require a waiver.

Does the gentleman know whether or not we are making progress on eliminating riders that are controversial so that we can move the bill in a bipartisan fashion next week?

I yield to my friend.

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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman.

Let me just observe to the majority leader, Mr. Speaker, that I have great reservations. I want to let the gentleman know that, on this side of the aisle, I think we have great reservations about doing in this short time that we have left any kind of comprehensive tax extender bill, which will adversely impact the possibility of tax reform, which all of us have said we want.

But if we make a major effort on taxes now, particularly making many, many items permanent, some of which I support making permanent, it will have an adverse effect on the ability to do a big tax reform bill, bring corporate rates down, look at preference items, and try to make sure that we have a fiscally responsible piece of legislation.

So I would hope that there is an alternative, obviously, and that is a short-term bill that the Senate has passed and that that would be part of the discussions as a fallback.

I don't know that I am for a larger bill that I have heard about, but I would hope, certainly, that the alternative that the Senate has passed would be an alternative if, in fact, we cannot get agreement on a bigger package so that we will have, at least for last year and the year to come, some certainty with respect to tax consequences of certain actions that private businesses may be taking.

I yield to my friend if he has any comment.

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